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Tripe, Lyonnaise
Cut one and a half pounds very fresh honey-comb tripe into julienne strips and keep on a plate. Cut two white onions in halves, then finely slice them. Heat one and a half tablespoons melted butter in a black frying pan, add the tripe and onions. Season with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon pepper; mix well and cook on the fire to a good brown colour, which will take about twelve minutes, taking special care to frequently mix with a fork meanwhile. Add one tablespoon good vinegar, three tablespoons demi-glace and half teaspoon very fresh chopped parsley; lightly mix, cook for two minutes, then dress on a hot dish and serve.
A fast sauté that depends entirely on the tripe being tender before it hits the pan. Twelve minutes browns tripe; it does not cook it.
- The tripe must be pre-cookedWhen this was written, honeycomb tripe came from the butcher already dressed and boiled, so "very fresh" meant recently bought, not raw. Tripe sold today is usually only scalded and bleached, and needs simmering in salted water for 1½ to 3 hours until it yields easily to a knife. Drain and cool it before slicing, or the dish will be rubber.
- Julienne stripsMatchsticks a couple of inches long and thin, roughly ⅛ to ¼ inch wide. Cut across the honeycomb pattern rather than with it, and pat the strips very dry so they brown instead of steaming.
- A black frying panCast iron or heavy carbon steel. The point is retained heat and a surface that takes a hard sear; a thin nonstick pan will not brown tripe and onion in twelve minutes.
- Demi-glaceReduced brown veal stock, thick enough to coat a spoon. Three tablespoons of good reduced beef or veal stock does the same job. Commercial concentrates work but are salty, so hold back on the teaspoon of salt until the sauce is in.
- Butter quantityOne and a half tablespoons is lean for 1½ lb of tripe and two onions in a hot iron pan. Two to three tablespoons, or butter cut with a little oil, gives you a better margin against scorching.
- SeasoningA full teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of pepper is heavy by current taste, particularly alongside demi-glace and the salted water the tripe was simmered in. Season in stages and taste at the end.
- The vinegarThe recipe adds it at the finish together with the demi-glace and parsley, then cooks two minutes. A tablespoon of vinegar reads as a foil to the fat; red wine vinegar suits it.
- YieldServes two to three as a main dish, more as part of a larger meal. Serve on genuinely hot plates, since tripe stiffens fast as it cools.
Anything lyonnaise in classical French cooking means onions, browned in fat; the tag is traditionally explained by Lyon's reputation for onion cookery, and it attached itself to potatoes, tripe, calf's liver and eggs alike. Tripe is the older half of the pairing: honeycomb, the second stomach of the ox, was cheap, plentiful in cities with large slaughterhouses, and often sold ready-boiled by specialist tripe dressers, which is why recipes of this period leap straight to the frying pan. Lyon has its own celebrated tripe preparations, including the breaded tablier de sapeur, and a quick sauté with onion and vinegar of this kind was familiar bouchon and bistro fare.